In crisis-hit parts of Africa, WFP school meals offer a vital lifeline to kids - and their families

A hot Sahelian wind blows dust through the open classroom windows of Kerfi village’s primary school in eastern Chad, where 17-year-old Jumayi Mahamat Djebure studies units of measurement scrawled on a blackboard.

When the school bell rings, students shoot out of packed classrooms, youngest ones first, heading for steaming plates of rice and split peas – meals that are supported by the World Food Programme (WFP). For Jumayi, who hails from this remote village, there is an extra bonus: mealtimes are a chance to see her best friend Mariam, a refugee from Sudan’s brutal war, raging across the border.

“Even though we see each other every day, I often visit Mariam in the camp, and she visits me in the village after school,” says Jumayi, clad in a bright pink headscarf and matching dress.

The school’s 3,000 Chadian and Sudanese refugee students have one thing in common: the hearty meals served up are sometimes their only ones all day. And like elsewhere in Africa where people are reeling from the aftershocks of conflicts, soaring hunger, extreme weather and other emergencies, WFP-supported meals are vital: they draw children to school, reversing often soaring dropout rates, and help to ease the financial strain on families already struggling with food insecurity.

Those lessons, among others, are being showcased this week, as the continent marks the 10th African Day of School Feeding on 1 March, aimed to underscore the importance of school meals in boosting educational outcomes, food security and local economies. The past two years alone have seen school meal coverage in Africa increase by 30 percent - from from 66 million children in 2022 to 87 million in 2024—driven largely by funding from African governments. WFP works alongside many of them to strengthen national school meals programmes.

Yet in the hardest-hit areas, children are still being left behind as funding gaps, supply chain disruptions and conflict continue to put school meals and education out of reach. Indeed, of the 21 million children in crisis-hit countries worldwide projected to receive WFP-supported school meals this year, many live in Africa.

Where school meals operate—in places like Niger, Libya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan, which are weathering or recovering from crises - they offer high-impact returns: from protecting children and their parents against hunger and allowing them to recover from a raft of shocks, to laying the groundwork for sustainable, nationally-led school meals programmes that can give Africa’s next generation a better chance to thrive.

“Children who are not hungry can focus on what the teacher says, and this keeps them in school,” says Mahamat Adam Idriss, a Sudanese Arabic teacher at Kerfi primary. Like refugee Mariam, he also fled his war-torn homeland. “Being here together creates strong relationships.”

War destroys, food rebuilds

In Niger’s southeastern village of Awaridi, 13-year-old Salamatou Mahamadou clutches a pink piece of chalk as she carefully writes “war destroys the world,” on the blackboard at her local primary school. Salamatou should know. A dozen years ago, armed fighters forced her family to flee their home in northern Nigeria.

They eventually settled in Awaridi, in Niger’s Diffa region, counting among thousands of people in the area who have escaped unrest — not only gripping northern Nigeria but also swathes of Niger. Last year alone, armed fighting in Niger forced hundreds of schools to temporarily shutter, depriving some 74,000 children of an education.

But Salamatou goes to Arawidi Primary School - which set up a WFP-supported school canteen after an influx of conflict-displaced children arrived in town. It serves up two meals a day to its students, which has “greatly boosted attendance,” says headmaster Alagi Fanamani.

“This school canteen will help me stay focused and achieve my goals,” says Salamatou, who is now in grade 4, and dreams of becoming a nurse “to help care for my community.”

“Many do not get breakfast in the morning - and worse, some come to school having not had dinner the previous night.” Headteacher in DRC

“Enrolling her was the right choice - it's her path forward, and she's thriving,” says Salamatou’s mother, Zeinab Oumar, describing the school canteen as “a blessing.”

Making a difference in crises

WFP school meals are making a difference where crises hit hardest. When massive floods hit the Libyan port city of Derna in 2023, killing thousands and causing widespread destruction, we worked with Libyan authorities and local partners to open school kitchens across the city. Today, they serve up nourishing meals to hundreds of young students, supporting both their recovery and continued education.

“There was an immediate positive response from the parents, who really supported and contributed to the project. Students started coming every day, looking forward to the meals,” says one school principal in Derna.

“I could focus on earning money for other needs without worrying if they would go to bed hungry." South Sudanese farmer Tieng Malong, of her school-going daughters

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, where fighting rages in the east, schools have been closed and children uprooted and living in makeshift camps. In other regions across the country, recovering from years of insecurity, WFP school meals and take-home rations reach almost 200,000 children. The programmes often encourage area farmers, schools and families to grow their own vegetables to supplement their diets.

“Students are excited to come to school and play very well after having their lunch at school,” says Dieudonné Nakuru Misati, head of Mudja Primary School in northeastern North Kivu province, where violence has deepened already serious hunger. “Many do not get breakfast in the morning,” Misati adds, “and worse, some come to school having not had dinner the previous night.”

In South Sudan’s Northern Bahr el Ghazal state, coping with the aftermath of devastating 2024 floods and an influx of war refugees from neighbouring Sudan, mother-of-seven Tieng Malong, 30, is relieved her daughters get at least one nutritious meal at school.

“I could focus on earning money for other needs without worrying if they would go to bed hungry,” Malong says.

Like South Sudan, Chad has welcomed hundreds of thousands of Sudanese war survivors, along with refugees from other countries, shaping the world’s fastest-growing refugee crisis.

Severe droughts and floods, along with the influx of conflict-displaced people, have fuelled tensions among communities. School meals, bringing together children of different backgrounds - like Jumayi and Mariam at Kerfi’s primary school— help to ease them.

“We drink the same water, we eat the same food,” says Kerfi’s headmaster Adef Hassan. “We are in this together.”

Learn more about WFP's school meals programme

Belgium, Canada, France, the European Union, Germany (KfW), Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, the United States and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints count among those donors who have been supporting WFP’s school meals programmes in Africa.